Well done to all the teams for the successful #covid19 vaccination rollout #Malta – 8️⃣8️⃣% of the Maltese population are fully vaccinated and 9️⃣1️⃣% have received the first dose @chrisfearne @Sagius71 @JorgenSouness @CGauci1 @HPDPmalta #takethejab pic.twitter.com/ZqLI0lpqYK

— Paula Vassallo (@paula_vassallo) August 7, 2021

As many countries around the world – all with fewer of their people vaccinated – have resumed everything from small gigs to large-scale stadium concerts, Malta has remained steadfast in its confusing refusal to open standing events.

With major artists’ tours returning all across the European continent, large-scale festivals bringing hundreds of thousands of vaccinated people together in the US, and plans set in motion to finally celebrate the end of summer in style all around the world, Malta still hasn’t even allowed one standing event of a couple dozen vaccinated people to be organised.

And we’re not talking about drug-fuelled raves in the woods that people seem to instantly think of when someone mentions events here; no wedding, work team-building, family gathering or event of any sort is legally allowed to have people standing for the foreseeable future… even if they did their part and got fully vaccinated to protect their family and fellow citizens.

To make matters worse, what’s legally allowed and what actually ends up happening are, as always, worlds apart – we’ve all heard of at least one event this summer that started out seated and magically saw stools, tables and chairs disappearing as the sun set, the lights dimmed and the phones were turned off.

Even with all of that in mind, the worst part of all this is not what’s happening right now… but what could be just around the corner.

With every passing week, the world is steadily finding out that pretty much every vaccine in everyone’s arm will need a booster after around six months.

For many of Malta’s cohorts – because of the island’s impressively fast roll-out – those six months are either already up, or are fast approaching.

In other words, there will come a time in the near future where the world will need to be put on pause yet again – this time for hopefully a shorter period – as a global vaccination booster effort is rolled out.

Slowly at first but eventually much quicker, the percentage of people around the world who are fully vaccinated and adequately protected against COVID-19 will drop again, and start pushing towards 0% instead of 100%.

Most of the rest of the world will have the fresh memory of normality as an incentive to take the booster and get on with their lives again. Malta, meanwhile, will just have the fresh memory of yet another year with no standing events, and no proper return to normality as a result of their first round of vaccination. All while Prime Minister Robert Abela insists that our measures are definitely balancing our “lives and livelihoods”.

And inevitably, whether they’re right or not (disclaimer: they’re not), people will ask: why bother getting vaccinated at all?

It only takes a strategic leader @chrisfearne and a vaccine rollout rapid deployment plan driven by data #malta https://t.co/NlS6MPBtZU

— Steve Agius (@Sagius71) July 31, 2021

What Malta seems to be engaged in right now, then, is a confusing and ironic exercise in ruining any semblance of potential its rare global lead might have.

With every single passing week, more and more people approach the threshold of needing a vaccine booster. And by the time that moment arrives, our island could very well still be closed for standing events.

This, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg: let’s not mention the irony of allowing a seated event of 500 people (or, bettter yet, a bunch of 500-people bubbles) which will inevitably devolve into some bending of rules, but still flat-out forbid a standing event for a fraction of the number of vaccinated people.

You might have already heard it being said before, but in case you haven’t, here’s what the sentiment has been for a lot of the island’s promoters: we don’t want a seated event for 500 people. We don’t even need that. Many of us can make do with so much less than that, and have been for years anyway. But at least, for once this year, now that our guests can be fully protected, why not allow us a standing event?

Conspiracy theories will always run rife – let alone more than an entire year into a global pandemic – but when even the most rational citizens start entertaining some outlandish ideas, you know something’s up.

Whether it’s the overly-ambitious (and quite frankly unattainable) historic objective of being the first country to hit a full 100% vaccination target or a genuine fear of repeating last year’s mistakes (even though all the variables have changed since then), you could point at an endless list of reasons as to why Malta’s health authorities keep holding on to this one final restriction.

Eventually, some will even end up mentioning some sort of masterplan to stifle protests, since the current restrictions effectively makes proper, large-scaled protests like the ones of November 2019 flat-out illegal.

Whatever the case, however, one thing’s for sure; the second an election is called, expect the return of mass meetings and tens of thousands of people congregating to fly red and blue flags.

And when that happens, this year-long cycle of irony will finally be complete.

What do you make of this? Sound off in the comments below